1. Field of the Invention
The present invention, generally, relates to animal feeder devices and, more particularly, to devices for feeding animals automatically at preselected time intervals.
Owners of pets and livestock are burdened with the responsibility of continually providing food and water for animals under their care. The lack of a reliable means to provide food and water for pets and livestock automatically has caused pet and livestock owners to provide alternate personnel to perform the feeding and watering function when the owners are not available to do so themselves or to board the pets and livestock at appropriate facilities, often at considerable expense.
Previous automatic animal feeding devices have tended to be excessively complex and, therefore, prone to malfunction which can contribute to the possible starvation or dehydration of pets and livestock. These prior devices also are not sufficiently versatile to permit easy and rapid adjustment of the quantity of animal food to be dispensed nor adjustment of the time interval between each feeding. Therefore, none of the prior animal feeding devices has solved this problem satisfactorily.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Many different types of automatic animal feeders are already known. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,235,200 to Michael A. Shay, that issued Nov. 25, 1980, discloses an automatic animal feeder with a pivotable chamber. A solenoid, when actuated by a timer apparatus, pivots the chamber to a food delivery position. The chamber has an arcuately shaped front panel in contact with an arcuately shaped housing.
The device that is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,437,595 which issued Mar. 20, 1984, to Perry Stevens et al., has a reciprocating slide member actuated by an adjustable throw solenoid to dispense animal food as determined by a timer.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,782,790 to Dalton B. Batson, which issued Nov. 8, 1988, discloses a device that utilizes a hopper with a gated side aperture and an endless conveyor belt. An electronic control actuates a solenoid to raise and lower a food gate to periodically engage a conveyor belt drive motor.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,324,203 to Arthur B. Chiappetti, that issued Apr. 13, 1982, discloses a mechanism with receptacles on a rotatable member that conveys the receptacles, with their contents, to a discharge location. The mechanism uses a motive force to turn the rotatable member at a fixed rate of one revolution every twenty four hours. The interval between each feeding is controlled by the number of receptacles on the rotatable member.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,763,810 to Lee T. Christiansen, that issued Aug. 16, 1988, discloses an apparatus for dispensing medication to human patients on a regular basis. It consists of a plurality of medication holding compartments, each having an open bottom. An endless belt with a hole dispenses the medication by moving and stopping periodically when the hole is under a compartment, according to a microprocessor that is programmed for each patients needs.
The structural arrangements of these prior art devices differ in material respects from the present invention. These differences will be more apparent as the description proceeds, as will the several advantages to which a structure according to the present invention admits.